1. APPLICABILITY: These guidelines are applicable to all assignments and reports submitted by students as part of the requirements of a course. These guidelines are applicable uniformly irrespective of the medium of production of the assignment or report, thus including paper documents, electronic documents, Web-pages, audio-video recordings, and all other mediums of communication. These are also applicable to both individual and group assignments. 2. PURPOSE OF THE GUIDELINES: The purpose of these guidelines is to convey to the students that an assignment or report submitted for evaluation is expected to be the independent work of the author(s) reflecting his/her (their) own learning on the subject. Students should always make an effort to write the assignments/reports in their own words. If and when they use any information from published or unpublished sources, they must acknowledge it suitably (see paragraph 5 below). The guidelines are expected to promote academic sincerity, discourage plagiarism, and inculcate a habit of acknowledging others' contributions. 3. DECLARATION BY AUTHOR(S): Every assignment or report must contain a signed self-declaration by the author(s) to the effect that the document (or submission) represents the effort and understanding of the author(s). The following words could be used: 'This document is the result of my/our independent work. All sources of information used in the document have been duly acknolwdged.' The self-declaration signifies that the submission is the result of the author's (authors') sincere effort and no part of it has been copied from a source. The self-declaration, however, does not prevent the author(s) from using data, interpretations, and arguments, from published or unpublished sources, or even quote from them, when such use becomes necessary, academically justifiable, duly authorised, and adequately acknowledged. The self-declaration should appear prominently at the beginning of the document. For more informal submissions, e.g., brief documents of say 1-2 pages, a signature against the name of the author (or just the name of the author in digital documents) should count as equivalent to a self-declaration. 4. WRITING IN YOUR OWN WORDS: It is extremely important to write in your own words. Sometimes, it may be tempting to pass off as your own, the sentence structure, expressions, thoughts, arguments, structure of the report, diagrams, tables, images, or even the conclusions of another person. Extreme care needs to be exercised to avoid this. This temptation must be controlled. It is highly desirable to develop your own writing style and your own independent thought. According to academic practice, passing off others' work as your own is considered to be a very serious misconduct, even crime, called plagiarism (pronounced PLAY-JI-ER-ISM), attracting heavy penalties in proven cases. 5. REFERENCING: Students should make it a habit to provide references to all the sources they use in their submissions, following the APA style. References should be quoted in the text (Last name, year of publication) and fully listed alphabetically at the end of the document. All references should be complete and accurate, including page numbers where available. Online citations should include the date of access. If necessary, unpublished or personal work can also be cited inside the main text with full details, e.g., (the notion was developed in a conversation with I. Chakrabarti on August 8, 2008) or (D. P. Dash, personal communication, e-mail dated August 8, 2008). Typically such entries are not included in the reference list at the end. Examples: Format for Referencing Articles Gray, David E. (2007). Facilitating management learning: Developing critical reflection through reflective tools. Management Learning, 38(5), 495–517. Format for Referencing Online Articles Hammersley, M. (1997). A reply to Humphries. Sociological Research Online, 2(4). Retrieved September 13, 2001, from http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/2/4/6.html Format for Referencing Books Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Lowe, A. (1991). Management research: An introduction. London: Sage. Format for Referencing Book Chapters Emery, F. E. (1981a). Planning for real but different worlds. In F. E. Emery (Ed.), Systems thinking (Volume 2) (pp. 56-80). Middlesex, UK: Penguin. Format for Referencing Websites ("n.d." stands for "no date") Dash, D. P. (n.d.). General guidelines for prevention of plagiarism. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from http://www1.ximb.ac.in/users/fac/dpdash/dpdash.nsf/pages/Plagiarism Some items are difficult to record in the reference list. An attempt should be made to record these with all the relevant details available, following the above formating style. 6. INTERPRETATION AND ENFORCEMENT: The interpretation of these guidelines is vested with all the faculty-members individually and jointly as a body. The enforcement of these guidelines should be vested with the Honour Council of the students, if such a body exists, otherwise with the faculty-members individually. Each faculty-member should bring all cases of flagrant and/or repeated violation of the guidelines to the notice of the Dean (Academic).
|